To navigate through the Ribbon, use standard browser navigation keys. To skip between groups, use Ctrl+LEFT or Ctrl+RIGHT. To jump to the first Ribbon tab use Ctrl+[. To jump to the last selected command use Ctrl+]. To activate a command, use Enter.

Education & Human Capital

Indiana has persistently lagged behind the nation’s educational levels, and the gap between Indiana and the rest of the nation is actually widening. Tracing the educational status of Indiana counties since the 1970s shows that only five counties have a well-educated workforce able to compete in the emerging knowledge economy of the 21st century.

This is not the case in the remaining 87 counties, which have been persistently lagging behind the nation and seem to have become trapped in a state of educational deprivation. The severity of the problem suggests that Indiana will face an uphill battle as it combats educational deprivation. To improve educational levels of Indiana’s lagging counties, this report recommends two-pronged strategies focused on higher education and employment creation for a highly educated workforce.

Indiana’s highly educated population increasingly concentrates in the center of the state, along an axis that stretches from Tippecanoe County to parts of the Indianapolis metropolitan area and continues to extend to Monroe County. By the year 2000, 40% of Indiana’s well-educated population resided in the eight counties along this axis. These eight counties—Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, Monroe, and Tippecanoe—have thus become what can be called “Indiana’s Knowledge Corridor” (IKC).

The growth and increasing concentration of the highly educated population in the knowledge corridor provides an opportunity for unprecedented economic growth and a boost to Indiana’s ability to compete in the global knowledge economy. To facilitate further growth, the report recommends assigning special status to the knowledge corridor as a coherent regional entity, aggressive marketing of the corridor’s locational advantages, and support for improved transportation infrastructure.

U.S. States and communities increasingly compete for intellectual power so as to thrive toward an economically vibrant setting that spurs the entrepreneurial spirit and attracts businesses and industries from around the world. As a recent report by the U.S. census reveals, 17 U.S. States have gained such intellectual power through the net inmigration of young, single and college educated persons. The State of Indiana is among the remaining thirty-three States that have a negative net balance, even ranking among the bottom ten in their ability to attract this highly valued population segment. In fact, for every young, single, college educated inmigrant, Indiana loses nearly two to other states. However, an analysis at the state-level hides important small-scale variations.

This paper therefore investigates the processes leading to changes in the spatial distribution of knowledge workers across Indiana counties, with emphases on in-situ change, retention, intra- and interstate migration. The analysis shows that these demographic changes at the county level in fact reveal a less bleak picture than the state-wide aggregate figures suggest, and uncover remarkable peaks in the landscape of intellectual capital that can serve as a catalyst for attracting intellectual capital from outside the State.

"Throughout the world, migration is an increasingly important and diverse component of population change, both at national and sub-national levels. Migration impacts on the distribution of knowledge and generates externalities and spillover effects. This book focuses on recent models and methods for analysing and forecasting migration, as well as on the basic trends, driving factors and institutional settings behind migration processes."

Migration and Human Capital also looks at many current policy issues regarding migration, such as the creative class in metropolitan areas, the brain drain, regional diversity, population ageing, illegal immigrtion, ethinic networks and immigrant assimilation. With specific reference to Europe and North America, the book reviews and applies models of internal migration; analyses the spatial concentration of human capital; considers migration in a family context; and addresses the political economy of international migration.